Adagio and Variations (1987) Nathan Currier

“The Adagio and Variations derive their formal and emotional thrust from the disparateness and relationships between two thematic areas−the first being an original movement, heard at the outset, and the second being Binchois’ chanson, De plus en plus, finally presented near the work’s end. The piece comprises, in fact, two simultaneous variation series, one treating of the original material, gradually dissected in its course, the second concerned with the Binchois, which comes into being−as the chanson’s text would have it−‘more and more.’ The work was completed in December, 1987 in Liège, Belgium.” ─Nathan Currier

The world premiere of Adagio and Variations was October 13, 1988 at Rani Seethai Hall, Madras, India. Commissioned by the Verdehr Trio, Adagio and Variations received an American Society of Composers and Publishers award in 1988, and it has been performed throughout the world.

Nathan Currier (born 1960, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania) grew up in a musical family in Providence, Rhode Island. He received a doctorate in composition from the Juilliard School in 1989. His principal teachers were David Diamond, Joseph Schwantner, Bernard Rands, Stephen Albert, and Frederic Rzewski.

Currier’s compositions have been performed from Moscow and the Far East to Western Europe and the United States. He has been commissioned by the Jerome Foundation, Concert Artists Guild, Chamber Music America, and the Readers Digest. In addition to the Verdehr Trio, he has written works for the Shanghai and Lark String Quartets, the Chelsea Ensemble, the Ravel Trio, and tenor Paul Sperry. His music is published by Theodore Presser.

Currier has received numerous grants and awards including: a Guggenheim Fellowship (1993), the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1991), a Fulbright Grant (1987), a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (1992), a grant from the Fromm Foundation at Harvard University (1991), and the Leonard Bernstein Fellowship at Tanglewood (1987).

He has also received prizes in a number of composition contests: the International Barlow Competition (1987), the Juilliard Orchestral Composition Competition (1989), the International Olympia Competition for Composition (1990), and competitions sponsored by Chamber Music Chicago (1989), the National Orchestral Association (1991), and Concordia (1992). He received two awards from The American Society of Composers and Publisher (1988−1989). As a pianist, Currier won the Silver Medal in the International Piano Recording Competition (1984) for his performance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

For ten years, Currier served on the Evening Division faculty at Juilliard, after which he served two years as a visiting faculty member at the University of Virginia. He has had frequent residency fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Other fellowships include an Irving Berlin Fellowship, a Victor Herbert Fellowship, and a Gretchinoff Fellowship. In 2016, he initiated a concert series called Orchard Circle with concerts in New York City and Philadelphia.

Additional information is available at www.nathankindcurrier.com.